Firefox and md5Sum

ter_roshak · Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 5:18 am Post subject: Firefox and md5Sum

I have a problem that started a few days ago with Firefox .8 and Thunderbird .82. When I try to start either of them, it takes nearly 30 seconds for either to start, (individually), and there are some md5sum processes taking up 40-65% of each processor for intermittent times while they load. I am running a dual Athlon MP 1200 system with 512MB Ram. A few days ago it would be maybe 2 seconds for either app to start.

I know there is another thread that talks about a DNS problem, but I don't think that is an issue here, I have changed no configurations, except for doing some normal daily emerge sync, and emerge -U world.

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

-Josh

scout · Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:48 am Post subject:

Is dma enabled on your harddisks ??
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ter_roshak · Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:05 pm Post subject:

Yes, dma is enabled...

-Josh

ter_roshak · Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2004 1:01 am Post subject:

The problem was that my hosts file was not readable by any but root! I fixed the problem and now it works faster, only takes a couple of seconds to open.

-Josh

rizzo · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 2:38 am Post subject:

I'm having this problem too and it drives me nuts. md5sum takes up CPU when both launching and exiting firefox. I know DMA is enabled on the HD.

I've rebuilt firefox a couple of times and still nothing.

On edit: Just timed it and it took 28 seconds for firefox window to come up after giving firefox command. CPU was at 100% for the full time.

ter_roshak · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 3:59 am Post subject:

Did you make sure that your /etc/hosts file was readable by everyone? My problem was that it was only readable by root. I do not know how it became that way, but that was the problem.

-Josh

rizzo · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 4:01 am Post subject:

Yes I can read it just fine from my normal user.

n0cturne · n00b Joined: 28 Dec 2002 Posts: 14 Location: NE, USA

Don't know if it's related, but I had this same problem. Oddly enough, what solved it for me was deleting a core dump that was hanging out in my home directory. I can't recall exactly what it was that made me try this except for the fact that I don't like core dumps lying all over in my home directory. After deleting it, Firefox started right up in a snap! Hope this helps!

rizzo · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:07 pm Post subject:

Yeah that was it. I should have looked for that when ps was telling me "md5sum core".

Why would it hang so long on those?

Anyway thanks for the tip.

n0cturne · n00b Joined: 28 Dec 2002 Posts: 14 Location: NE, USA

Glad it worked for you! I am not sure exactly why it even tries to run md5sum on those core files, but mine was big. Something > 30 MB and I suppose that's why it was taking about 45 seconds for Firefox to start for me. Weird...